Threshold
by Alice Day
Summary: A brilliant, bitter orphan faces his last foster home before emancipation, and runs into something he never expected.


_Jeffrey Combs once said in an interview that he figured someone must have hurt Herbert West so badly at some point that he just turned himself off, emotionally. As I am backstory's bitch, that one comment stuck in my head, and since Jeffrey (with an assist from messrs Gordon and Paoli) pretty much created the character Re-Animator fans know and love, I'm taking this as canon for Herbert's emotional issues._

_For horror fans, there is no gore, beheadings, or shambling reanimates in this story, sorry. And since the novelization of RE-ANIMATOR makes Herbert a Canadian (don't ask me why -- the original short story sets him in Boston. But the short story also said he was blond and blue-eyed, so I'm rolling with the movie canon), I'm going along with that. He winds up in Montreal because I used to live there and it's the only Canadian city I know well._

_As for what -- and who -- could have hurt Herbert so badly, well, I have some thoughts on the matter..._

* * *

Threshold  
by Alice Day

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CHAPTER ONE

The teenager waited on the porch of the rambling brick house, a battered suitcase in his hand. The social worker at his side gave him a brief glance. "The Newtons are good people, dear," she said reassuringly. "They've agreed to let you stay with them after your 18th birthday so that you can finish out grade 12 here. Just...try and behave yourself, all right?"

He turned to her, green eyes unreadable behind the thick lenses of his cheap glasses. "I always behave myself," he said coolly. "It's not my fault if other people behave like howler monkeys."

The social worker sighed. She'd seen so many children pass through the foster care system; some of them learned to float on the uncertain currents, making it through to adulthood in one piece. Others flailed at the succession of homes, the wildly varying foster parents, the constant sense of being unwanted, until they sank out of sight. The young man next to her had been part of her case load for five years, now, and she still wasn't sure which way he would go.

She touched his shoulder. He pulled away from the contact, the move polite but definite. She shrugged and let her hand drop to her side. Eventually he'd learn to accept support when it was offered.

Or not.

The door opened, framing a short woman with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. "Mrs. Adams," she said with a smile. "Right on time. And you must be Herbert."

The teenager gave her a stiff nod. "Herbert West."

###

As foster homes went, it was a huge improvement on the last one, Herbert thought. It smelled pleasant, and the furniture appeared to be in good repair and free from vermin. And at least they spoke English, which was a relief. He'd worried about that when Mrs. Adams told him there was a family in Montreal willing to take him for the entire school year. He knew French, of course; it was Canada's other official language, and every schoolchild learned it. But he preferred the precision of English, if only because most of the research papers he devoured were written in it.

Mrs. Newton responded favorably to his silence, mistaking it for shyness. She showed him pictures of the other flotsam and jetsam that had stayed there before him, chattering on about her physician husband and their two offspring. He smiled thinly, nodding when it seemed appropriate, and wondered when they would show him to wherever he'd be sleeping and leave him alone.

Finally, the social worker stood up, obviously eager to leave. "Thank you again for your help, Mrs. Newton," she said. "I'm sure that Herbert will settle in nicely here."

"Oh, of course he will," Mrs. Newton said, laying a cool hand on his. Herbert ignored the urge to yank it away. He knew her type: upper middle-class, married to one of the pillars of the community, gliding through PTA meetings and church bake sales on her looks and charm. She probably thought that taking in older foster children made her friends and neighbors admire her that much more.

_Ten months. I can live with this simpering ninny for ten months. And then I'm free._

As soon as the social worker was gone, Mrs. Newton told him to bring his suitcase upstairs. "You'll be sharing a room with my son," she chattered as they headed up the staircase. "He's quite the sports fan -- I hope you like baseball."

"Not really."

She looked back at him, a tiny crease forming between her eyes. "Well, I'm sure you boys can find something to talk about," she said. "Now, the first door on the right is your room -- across the hallway is the bathroom, and Dr. Newton's and my bedroom is at the end of the hallway."

Herbert silently counted doors. "Whose room is that?" he said, nodding at the door in the far corner.

Mrs. Newton glanced at the door, and frowned slightly. "That's my daughter's room," she said. "She's in Grade 12 this year, as well, but I don't know if you'll be in any of her classes -- she's mainly taking advanced courses."

"So am I."

Her gaze flickered over him again, as if unsure of where to land. "Oh. Well, she spends a great deal of time studying, so we try not to disturb her."

Herbert heard the unspoken warning; the daughter of the house was off-limits._ As if I'd waste my time on her._ "I spend most of my time studying, as well, so I doubt I'll see her much," he said.

Mrs. Newton perked up a bit at that. "Well, you can meet them both at dinner. Why don't you go put your things away, then come downstairs for some pie?"

Herbert's stomach betrayed him with a rumble. Lunch at the Gerstners' had been a long time ago, and not particularly filling. "All right."

###

The pie was an acceptable cherry, garnished with a scoop of ice cream. He resisted the urge to lick the fork, carrying it and the plate to the sink for washing. Mrs. Newton turned and looked at him in surprise. "Oh, you don't have to do that."

"I don't like to leave things dirty," he said, putting the now-clean dish and fork into the dish rack. His third foster mother had reinforced that attitude with a strap. "May I go for a walk?"

"But I thought you'd like to get settled in your room, that sort of thing."

"I've already unpacked," he said. After all, it didn't take much time to put away two pairs of jeans, three t-shirts, and assorted underwear. "I'd like to see the neighborhood, if that would be all right."

She gave him what she obviously thought was an indulgent smile. "All right, but be back by 6:00 PM. We usually have dinner as soon as Dr. Newton gets home."

He nodded and slipped out of the kitchen, briefly detouring up the stairs to his room before escaping into the crisp summer weather. Montreal was nothing like Gananoque or the other little towns he'd lived in during his tour of the Ontario foster care system. Most of them had a small central shopping and business zone, surrounded by a residential area. Montreal, however, was a sprawling metropolis, and his new neighborhood, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, was street after street of brick homes and duplexes. He knew he'd learn it eventually, but for now it was somewhat daunting. At least he'd spotted a large park on the way to the Newton home. Parks were usually good places to sit and read.

He hefted the thick textbook under his arm as he walked up a street labeled Cote St-Antoine. The old copy of _Grey's Anatomy _was one of the few things he'd been allowed to keep from Before. The pages were badly dog-eared by now, and a forest of notes had grown in almost all the margins. Some of them had been written by his father. He would re-read them after a bad day, trying to remember what Dr. Henry West was like. The only good things he could recall with any real clarity were warm blue eyes, and the woodsy scent of aftershave mixed with the sharpness of antiseptic. His mother was even more distant; the scent of lilac, and a flash of sunlight on dark hair.

The bad things, however...

The fire that killed his parents had happened almost ten years ago. He hadn't meant to burn the house down; he was almost sure of that. He'd just been so angry at his mother and her constant bothering -- _Herbert, put down that textbook and come eat. Herbert, go outside and play with the other boys -- you can fuss with your test tubes later. Herbert, your father's home -- come watch TV with us. Herbert Herbert Herbert._ It was intolerable.

And then she'd taken some of his solvents for her ridiculous oil painting hobby, without even asking. It was the last straw. He'd just learned about hypergolic mixtures that week from the books he used to sneak out of Father's library; it occurred to him that if he planted a combination under her easel and it just happened to catch on fire, it would teach her a lesson about touching other people's things without asking. He hadn't counted on the flammability of fresh oil paints, or the rapidity of the fire's spread.

Well, he had only been eight, after all.

Frightened by the roaring flames licking at the ceiling, he'd hidden in the downstairs bathroom. Luckily for him, neighbors spotted the smoke and called the fire department. The fireman who carried him out of the burning home tried to hide the bodies on the staircase from him, but he'd seen them anyway, only half-hidden by the dark, choking smoke. His first set of glasses came soon after the fire, and he wondered much later if his extreme nearsightedness didn't have a psychosomatic component born of what he saw that day.

The coroner's report announced that Henry and Emily West's deaths were accidental, due to smoke inhalation. No one was inclined to investigate the fire further, and as both Wests were only children and their parents were dead, their orphaned eight-year-old son was turned over to the tender mercies of the Ontario foster care system. For the next nine years, Herbert shuttled in a slow but constant pattern between foster families, shipped off to the next home when the complaints (both his own and those of his foster family) grew too great.

The Newtons would be his last foster home -- he turned eighteen in September, and was an emancipated adult after that. The incipient freedom came with a price; with no family support or funding, it was crucial for him to excel in school this academic year. If he didn't win a scholarship, there would be no other way for him to afford college and medical school.

And he had to go to medical school. He _had_ to.

He found the park, a green expanse that stretched over most of a city block, and chose a spot underneath a silver maple. At the back of the park, children shrieked and giggled as they scrambled over a jungle gym, their mothers watching from a nearby bench. He opened _Grey's Anatomy _and the world fell away.

He didn't notice the shadow until it was too late. "What kind of freak reads schoolbooks in the summer?" someone sneered.

Herbert looked up into the face of a teenaged boy looming over him. Keeping his own face expressionless, he looked back at the book, focusing on a plate of the muscles of the lower back. Sometimes, if he ignored the bullies long enough, they would eventually leave him alone--

A powerful shove sent him sprawling in the grass. This wasn't going to be one of those times.

"I'm _talking_ to you, freak," the boy sneered.

Herbert pushed up his glasses and glared at his attacker. He knew the ritual by now; attack the newcomer, size up his strengths and weaknesses, and determine where he fit in the pecking order. This time, he estimated he had a good chance of taking down his attacker; the boy was taller, but flabby and lacking in muscle tone.

Before he could get to his feet, however, a blur in brown slammed into the teenager, knocking him to the ground. The boy was abruptly flipped onto his stomach, and his arm yanked behind his back. "What did Mom tell you about picking on kids, moron?" his assailant said.

"Get OFF me, moo-cow!"

The arm went higher, and the boy yelped in pain. "Apologize."

"Gah! All right, all _right_, I'm sorry!"

Herbert realized the person sitting on his attacker's back was a girl. A rather tall, plain girl, but a girl nonetheless. And one who knew how to apply a really good arm lock, from the looks of things.

She glanced up at him and grimaced. "Go home, kid."

Herbert flushed at the unintentional insult. He got to his feet, roughly brushing the dirt and grass off his jeans. "I'm not a kid," he said.

She shrugged. "Whatever. I won't let him up until you're gone." She grinned down at her brother's back. "Isn't that right, moron?"

"Bite me, moo-cow," the boy snarled.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm so hurt." Flashing a quick look at Herbert, she jerked her head at the park entrance. "You better take off, eh?"

Dismissed, like a child who couldn't defend himself. Frustrated, Herbert grabbed his textbook and stalked away, glancing over his shoulder one last time at the arguing brother and sister. _With my luck, they'll live next door to the Newtons. So much for Montreal being civilized._

###

His initial estimate turned out to be off, but only slightly. He sat down at the Newtons' dinner table at 6:00 PM, bleakly unsurprised to see Moron and Moo-cow on the other side.

"Michael, Elsie, this is Herbert," Mrs. Newton said. "He's going to stay with us this year. Herbert, this is my daughter Elsie and my son Michael."

The boy glowered at him, and the girl smirked. Herbert smirked back. "We've met," he said.


End file.
